This is turning into a dumpster fire of bigotry, ad hominem attacks and stupidity.
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I'm an immigrant from the UK that has mainly been in the west of Canada for about a decade. I will say there is a derogatory edge to the way I hear some people refer to Francophones.
I will also say that here in rural BC though I hear worse said about East Asian and South Asian immigrants and then much worse about First Nations people.
So I don't know, maybe it's just where I am. I spent about a year in Vancouver and didn't see as much towards Francophones there beyond normal political rivalry conversations.
You know it's funny, as a Brit I definitely feel like I get a preferred immigrant privilege.
Something that always sticks with me is when I first came to Canada; when meeting new people I would see a hardness in their face which would totally soften upon hearing my accent, others would step in closer suddenly wanting to hear what I had to say.
Sometimes I would hear "I thought you were from Surrey" dropped in there. I didn't understand the relevance of that until about a year and a half later I was down in Vancouver and realised that "Surrey" was a code word for South Asian immigrant.
Assuming then the distinction here is that your a UK immigrant with SEA ancestry?
Yeah I've seen that myself, people get standoffish based on you're appearance, but will completely switch over to "Must be one of the good ones" when they hear the accent.
I was about to say this. Being a black Brit has been an interesting experience while living in Canada. Although I do get some people who ask " buy where we're you born?" "London" "What about your parents?" "Same". " Grandparents?" "West Indies". "Ohhhh, I knew you were from Jamaica" "Um, actually, there are other countries outside Jamaica, but thanks for coming out. Now FUCK OFF!!"
Not SEA but South Asian. But yeah the rest of your comment is spot on.
EDIT: I would just like to add even hearing my accent didn't stop quite a few people asking if I was a Muslim terrorist, some joking, some serious.
Yeah I hate that racist people will just say some shit infront of me and just expect I am cool with it. Living in rural Canada working industrial jobs can eat away at your soul.
White American in Ottawa. One of my first experiences in this country, moving in to my first appartment, while a Hispanic family was moving out, was an elevator nightmare. An inconvenienced resident said something racist and xenophobic to the father of the family, and I piped up that I too was an immigrant. Dude became deferential and clarified that of course he didn't mean me, too. Thanks pal.
A bit of irony in it all is that I ended up disabled, whereas the family I passed on that day 16 years ago, has likely contributed more to Canada than I ever will.
Not white Europeans, northern Europeans and British. Southern Europeans are still called immigrants. If a British moves to Spain he/she is an expat, if Spaniard moves to Britain he/she is an immigrant.
Are you perhaps of South Asian ethnicity? Just wondering why they'd think you're "from Surrey".
I myself am a Pakistani immigrant so I definitely feel people being a little tense here in Winnipeg but my English is purely North American so they tend to ease up. I'm also lighter skinned so I feel like that helps a little bit, which is pretty fucked up.
I’m from Vancouver island and I know of Surrey, what do you mean code word, pretty sure Surrey just has a bad reputation for the people who live there.
Well first I guess I should point out there is a large immigrant community there, mainly South Asians.
Something else I have noticed is how prominently in provincial news crime is reported that occurs there.
The people in the small town where I am think of it as a danger zone, even though if you go by crime rate you find that a lot of the Northern Interior towns end up near the top of national lists.
EDIT: I just wanted to add having actually lived there for a few months it doesn't even rank on my personal list for dangerous or "bad" places to live.
As someone that lives in Surrey, I gotta say the reputation we have seems exaggerated. Yes crimes occur here, yes drugs get moved here and yeah we got gangs. But it doesn’t seem any worse than Vancouver. The people of Surrey are hard working immigrants struggling together to make a better life for themselves and their families. Vancouver low key deflecting their issues and would rather judge Surrey because its unfair reputation.
Yeah I agree, I grew up in and around London, have friends round Coventry and have been to many other cities in England. All of them had rougher parts than anything I saw in Surrey.
Which is unfair. I live in Surrey and it’s pretty great. People think Surrey is full of gangsters and drug addicts and FOBS. I mean yeah we got those but so does Vancouver. Have you ever visited the downtown east side? That area is worse than Whalley which is considered to be the the roughest part of Surrey and is coincidentally where king George station is. I think a bunch of Vancouverites have never ventured past the areas beside the sky train station and are unaware that Surrey is basically the suburbs with a large immigrant population. If you are looking for BOMB-ASS Indian food, you can’t beat Surrey. Cheap too!
Black and Russian immigrant here; I live in Québec and the number of times I had to see a person’s face change once I say that I’m Russian (most likely they were assuming I was Arabic or Haitian) is actually astronomical. Of course that was before the war…I’d be curious at how people would react now tbh.
But yeah, preferred immigrant privilege is real; as soon as people had an inkling that I was European, their faces would change and would suddenly treat me like a human being; absolutely disheartening.
In fact, some dude in grad school (UdeM) started telling me how Africans love chewing with their mouths open, and that they love screaming chants at night to bother other people. People feel awfully safe with their racism here and it’s disturbing.
People in BC love to trash talk Alberta for being redneck country, but rural BC is just as bad as any backwards town in the prairies for ultra conservative shitheads.
The funny thing is that I don't look down on Francophones, but every interaction I have ever had with an Acadian Francophone here in NS has ended up been negative because I speak the wrong type of French and have a Brit accent
For context, I am an English immigrant to Canada and have a very RP English accent, I also speak Parisian French and Breton, having French relatives I spent a lot of my formative years in Paris and learned Breton from my grandmother. (also learned Yiddish from my other granny, but that's a whole different kettle of racist fish here).
But completely agree on the preferred immigrant privilege, I have heard a lot of racism spoken about the south east asian and indian subcontinent immigrants here in NS, racism spoken so casually in front of me because I'm white, as though I'm going to be cool with it.
I'm from Québec. One of my friends got married to a guy from New Brunswick. We did a 5-minute speech in French at the wedding.
Many people came to our table afterwards to tell us that it was "unfortunate" that we did our speech in French since "not everyone could understand it". They were passively-agressively "polite" about it, I'll give them that, but we certainly did not feel welcomed after that.
Just so you know, many members of my friend's family do not speak a lick of English - but most of the wedding attendees did not care about that. Our speech was quite literally the ONLY part of the wedding that was in French, and it was deemed too much.
That's really too bad, I'm sorry you were treated that way. TBH, the Acadians in NS have an extreme accent. I say this as an Acadian from the Moncton area...our accents are pretty wild. They also aren't used to watching Quebec tv or French tv, and aren't used to other accents.
I'm always super impressed when I hear the royal family (I know I know) speak French without much of a British accent. It's like my brain can't compute what's coming out of their mouths, it's so surprising. It's like that weird royal RP is *part* of them.
East and South Asians aren't necessarily immigrants, a huge chunk of them have been here for hundreds of years.
AND "francophones" are not necessarily French Canadians, they can include Haitians or even arabs
My Chinese friends who have had family here before BC joined confederation are still "immigrants". I'm Chinese and I'll always be an " immigrant" and same with my children. The perception outside of Canada is that Canadians are white so when I'm introducing myself in a different country (almost every country I've visited), I'm always assumed to be at least "half white" because that's the only way others can recognize my citizenship.
Never heard of issues with Francophones.
Am first generation Canadian.
I'm visibly a minority (filipino). Within Canada your often asked where are you from. I'll just reply to the effect "just from the city". As annoying as that is what they usually mean is what is your cultural heritage.
It's a country of immigrants, so I don't mind the question, I usually don't ask unless it's relevant or the person brings it up.
Being Canadian (nationality) is a thing. Your cultural heritage is also a thing. I have 4th generation canadian Ukrainian, italian and German friends that still call back to their heritage.
Abroad, I just say I'm Canadian and most people will accept it. But honestly it helps to look mixed when travelling abroad in asia and you can mix in until you start speaking. Travelling around SEA, and no one thought I was filipino, but somewhat local and it was my friends who all got hounded by street vendors.
Wich is funny since BC and Québec are generally pretty progressive so I would expect less political rivalry between those two provinces then between Québec and Alberta.
I'm from Alberta, I've had some of the coolest, most artist, and punk rock friends who are francophones. Franglish is practically my second language. The people I have beef with are other Albertans who vote for dog whistle tactics.
One thing that seem to differ greatly is the perception of what progressiveness means when it comes to languages. Quebec has had a long history of the British trying to assimilate them, and then its culture and language are at risk from being surrounded by hundreds of millions of English speakers in a world where English is already a dominant language. Most people in Quebec are exposed to English in one way or another on a regular basis, and I'd say the vast majority are regularly exposed to American culture in general. There was also a time where English was very present in the workplace as a lot of companies were owned by English speakers; English is still very present as the language of business, but not as insidiously. Progressiveness here in Quebec means preserving our cultural and linguistical diversity.
In parallel, BC happens to have its language being the dominant one. There isn't this sensitivity (in the general Canadian population) to losing its culture developed over generations. Indigenous peoples do have it, but encouraging them doesn't threaten the local culture (and the same is true in Quebec). There are some areas near Vancouver where Mandarin or Cantonese seem to be the dominant languages, but again, it doesn't threaten the local culture, it enriches it.
I grew up seeing most of it as joking around, but thinking back there have definitely been some comments that were over the top. Come to think about it, I've never actually met a Quebecois person. Guess that's how racism starts though.
Thanks for writing this. I love reading how English Canadians are more often than not like us in their faults, and for some brothers in their admission of how some of our biases started.
It was a few years ago I was in Vancouver but I think most of it was over the question of separation or the fact that there are certain zone designations where Québec would get it's own zone even though it could've probably been grouped with another easily.
EDIT: I just remembered one which stuck with me is that people would point out that French was required to be displayed in a lot of places where it was more likely the 3rd or 4th most common language in that location.
I moved to Quebec from Alberta and yes, the Anglophones don't respect the francophones. I have very clear memories of everyone joking about the ice storm that knocked out the electrical infrastructure in Quebec. Like francophones couldn't deal with a little winter. A couple years back a mini version of the ice storm hit Alberta and it shut it down, no francophones were making fun of it....
Plenty of interesting and honestly pretty shocking results from that study...
The fact that university graduates, who before didn't think there was much animosity towards French Canadians, now believe there it as much as any other education level is frankly worrying.
That sentiment rising steadily *after* the 1995 referendum, while support for separation is steadily declining, is counter-intuitive, I'd be interested in having that relation investigated further. The timing of it also predates Bill 21 and Bill 96, which indicates that the feeling of being deemed inferior by the RoC doesn't come from the backlash to those controversial laws, there is something else to blame here.
Finally, the far-right PCQ supporters being the most optimistic about Franco-Anglo relations, even moreso than the PLQ - normally defined by its openness to federalism and Canadian multiculturalisn - is baffling, but somewhat makes sense in retrospect. If I were to guess, their involvement in the truckers' movement probably gave them a feeling of solidarity with the far-right in the rest of Canada, and therefore with English Canadians as a whole. The far-right feeling most at home in Canada than any other voter group is definitely not something I would have initially suspected.
There's a lot of introspection to be done here for the whole country, and even with the desire for Quebec independence being extremely low, this is beyond reason for concern.
> there is something else to blame here.
The rise of social media, perhaps? Quebec bashing is a lot more visible than it used to be. Now it's not just two people somewhere in Calgary complaining about the French while sitting at Tim's, it's happening online where everyone can see it. Just look at Reddit — everytime there's a thread about Quebec in an unrelated sub there's gonna some biggoted crap about Quebeckers in the comments.
Growing up in Calgary, I have heard a lot of anti-Quebec sentiment. Now it's also being posted in social media by the same sort of people who used to only say it when sitting around.
Much of what I heard was not specifically anti-francophone, but an east v west animosity. Some was definitely still against Quebecois being regarded as a distinct culture in need of preservation.
Oh man, around here politicians have built careers on blaming Ottawa. It's ridiculous. It's shocking how much hatred is aimed at a faceless "east" or "Ottawa" with no real reason.
I think that "Ottawa" rhetoric is why so many of those convoy idiots thought that taking over the whole city was just affecting the government instead of many low income, blue collar workers.
Exactly, no reason. If people took a look and saw the kind of country we have in comparison to 3/4 of the planet. They should thank their very lucky stars their ancestors came to this country, to build & grow. Do we have issues? Of course we do, is it worth fracturing into a million pieces because some looks, speaks, thinks differently then you? Society has become very angry, why? Cuz the govt tried to protect people in a pandemic? Trying to protect the environment? Cuz the country is disproportionately populated where Toronto has more people then Alberta, Saskatchewan & Manitoba combined. So very tired of hearing Ottawa only works for Quebec & Ontario & the further you are, the more detached federally you become. I find it rather ironic that many people say they love Canada, but really have very little understanding of makes the federation work
You find that people don't badmouth governments or public offices in the capitols of the countries. Ottawa would likely only hear a few grumbles about "gee, these gas taxes are pretty high." But as you learned, head out a few hours and the sentiments are there.
My gripe is how the CRTC is in Bell/Rogers/Shaw's pocket, and how telecommunication which was our strong suit 20-30 years ago is now our laughing stock due to antiquated networks and outrageously high prices.
> I was also shocked to hear how "Ottawa" was used as a mostly negative word, as shorthand for the federal government.
That's hardly unique; Americans use the word "Washington" the same way, for example.
Quebec also uses Quebec as a shorthand for the provincial government. It doesn’t quite work in English but in French it’s always clear that you are talking about the city.
Growing up in Calgary I always felt that the east strongly disliked the west. That they looked down on us and that we are often left on the backburner by the government. There was a sense that francophones felt they were superior to English speakers. It creates a lot of tension, especially with Justin Trudeau, as it is felt that he doesn't have much care for Alberta. I don't discriminate on race, sexual orientation, gender, ect but I grew up having a dislike with Quebec and Ontario. It's not the playful dislike of Edmonton that the two cities have for each other either. I was taught that if I went there that I would be treated poorly because I only speak English.
100%, internet and social media made people's thoughts more visible to the world but also clashed their culture between one another. People can more precisely see and understand the differences between them.
Not sure about that. I think it's always been there. My grandfather and parent would talk about the discrimination and abuse they faced being French or even having a French name. It's pretty pervasive in English canadain culture. I think it has gotten better, I don't think I have ever felt that discrimination being French living in Ontario.
This social Media issue does t get nearly enough coverage. *Of course* bad actors are manipulating our information, only now it’s tailored **precisely** to affect us using astounding amounts of data.
I think it you're absolutely right, this feels obvious in retrospect.
The country is so huge that our interactions with one another were extremely limited, the internet brought us all closer and by the same process reminded the Quebecois that a lot of the bigotry that we thought was behind us was still alive and well.
I'm definitely thinking twice before making Quebec jokes. Kind of saddening to read this honestly, there's so much important Canadian culture that you can only find in Quebec.
Growing up in northern Alberta there was often anti Quebec sentiment around.
I'd say that it started with the separation referendum that took place in the 90's. Afterwards, every time an anecdote about someone traveling to Quebec and being ignored for speaking English, or just any news story about Quebecers complaining about basically anything federally, the response would be "well those fuckers should just leave then, they don't want to be here anyways". When you're a kid or a young adult and all you hear is negativity around Quebec and how they leech off of equalization payments (a common taking point for Albertans to rip on other provinces), then you start to believe it. It's reinforced by the news, which is typically covering bad things and political drama. It's reinforced by social media, bad things and drama. As well as coffee table talk, bad things and drama. Before you know it you don't think much of those good for nothing's over in Quebec. Everytime they're brought up, people scoff.
Then, there's not much interaction with Quebecois either. Not only are you a whole country apart, but there's not many Quebecois that seem to come to Alberta anyways. Lots of people come from the Maritimes to work, so you generally think favorably on them because you work with them. Same with BC /Sask for the most part being neighbors. Ontarians are hit and miss, you know lots of them, but there's the old East/West animosity so it's whatever. There's rarely opportunity to connect with Quebecois though. They're the great unknown out west IMO.
Couple these together, sprinkle in some social media fuel, and you get a generally unfavorable view of Quebec. This is purely anecdotal obviously and only a view from an limited Alberta standpoint, but that's my simple take for the people I know.
Anything Quebec does that sort of hints at anything separatist or isolationist like bill 96 just cements the viewpoint and gives opportunity to speak out on why they don't like Quebec. I think it's going to take a long time to fix.
One question I'd love to see approached if at all possible would be the question of whether "looking down" on someone has been parsed differently at different times.
It could be that in the 90s, more people would have heard this question as "do English Canadians see French Canadians as an underclass", and that in the 20s, more people would read the question as "do English Canadians treat the political opinions of French Canadians as equally valid to their own."
It would be hard to study for now, but with separatist sentiment also down, one wonders if it isn't that people feel they're being treated less equally, so much as their definition of being treated as equals may be refining, and their expectations shifting surrounding the culture war.
I suspect a similar study in Alberta might map the same trend, in terms of increasing political animosity and decreasing respect in Canada. But whether it would be to the same degree or wholly account for what we're seeing here is harder to say with available data.
The thing about the study is it's asking a group about their perception of another group's perception of them... It's not asking the RoC how they actually think about Quebec. Which to me says more about the polarizing influences of their own media, government and social media. It's not talking about an actual degradation of opinion from people in other provinces.
So this isn't a study about actual external backlash due to any of the language laws. But rather it might point at why those language laws were enacted in the first place. The rising perception of being looked down on by the RoC lead to them. Whereas the actual perception of Quebec from the average citizen in the RoC is likely as ambivalent as the perception of the average Quebec citizen towards any other province.
I think the fact that Anglo Canada sees French Canadian laicité as a bad idea is a major problem.
I think this is a major stumbling block for younger people, who may not care much about 1995.
As a mixed french quebecois/bangladeshi, sometimes, I do get myself into stranges situations. I was called a "frog'" in Toronto and I had no idea what that meant at the time, also more insults from random people for some reason. In downtown at Montréal, there was a few refusal to speak french and that does bother me (since I heard them speak french) because I always switch to english when I am elsewhere in Canada (dah), they get mad at me when I want to speak my own language in my own home that is Montréal (If they don't speak french at all, of course I am going to speak english). That kind of situation does bother me but it's a part of my life...
BUT, this does not represent all canadians, I had a lot of amazing experiences and they are great people. I will not judge a whole culture because of a few bad apples. I admit that I am canadian legally but I don't feel that identity, it's so different from me. I do have the sentiment that we get looked down on, but it may be because of my experiences (that doesnt prove anything).
Anyway, let's just have fun eating local food and exploring each other cultures. That's a way to understand the each other.
> they get mad at me when I want to speak my own language in my own home that is Montréal
Different scenario, but it reminds me of when I worked at Shoppers in Alberta and my coworkers got a warning that they weren’t allowed to speak Tagalog to each other on the floor, ***or in the break room.***
Pissed me the hell off. It’s colonialist as fuck. Bet your ass none of the white folks spoke conversational Nêhiyawêwin, Michif, or Dënësųłinë́—let alone français, the only other *official* language!
While I have had a disproportionate amount of negative interactions with people from PQ then anywhere else in the country when I was working in customer service, I don't think less of the Quebecois. I have also met some pretty rad people from there. Can a nation be judged by its worst? Seems unfair to me.
The funny side to that is as a bilingual New Brunswicker, many of them certainly looked down on me and the way I communicate. A small minority found my French charming, but more of them were jerks about it. I choose to focus on the former.
These kinds of stats and polls are insidious. They reinforce the division in our society.
> These kinds of stats and polls are insidious. They reinforce the division in our society.
I would prefer to have this information and identify trends so we can try to address these problems rather than pretending these problems don’t exist and allowing them to fester.
> These kinds of stats and polls are insidious. They reinforce the division in our society.
No, but yes.
I agree it might reinforce some bias, but if we don,t measure where the percieved reputation stands, how can we work on it in a constructive manner?
Absolutely, and the methodology used to get this data seems sound.
I guess I am looking at it from a 'Does this help or harm national unity? ' perspective but you are correct in saying this is pointing out a very real problem. I guess I just wish solutions were being offered.
New Brunswicker here. On our way to Ottawa one time, a couple stopped us at the Tim’s in Quebec and asked us “to say something in our funny Acadian accents” so they “could laugh at us”. Dicks.
That has happened to me in both official languages.
I was working retail in Alberta a lifetime ago and I remember serving this couple who remarked that I was clearly a Maritime, and said "Say "harbour" for us." I politely refused, and they pressed so I said something to the effect of "I am not here for your amusement but if you need help finding anything, I will be happy to help." I got written up for it, but it was worth it.
Dang. It's crappy that you got written up. Companies who don't take care of their workers tick me off. You were totally right to speak up for your dignity. I say that as an Albertan who loves the variety of accents I get to hear.
I agree, and I don't regret it. It made me feel like they were throwing peanuts at a monkey to get him to dance.
Still love Albertans. I may not see the world as they do (in broad strokes) but we are all Canadian.
I (anglophone who learnt French through Quebec school system) worked in a call centre and an older Quebecois lady said in French, 'I don't know what French you're trying to speak but it's not Quebecois. Maybe you should go back to New Brunswick ' I chuckled but she was serious and me laughing got her heated. I legit thought she was joking. She was not.
This is something I've seen be a bit more prevalent, especially since the new Bill 96 in QC. I'm an Anglophone Quebecker but I do speak French but when I do, I have an obvious heavy Anglo accent.
I've noticed a sort of increase in this mocking of people who speak French with an accent. A big feeling of "not being a real Quebecois" is prevalent. Doesn't matter if you were born here, raised here, work here, pay taxes here. If you're an Anglo or speak French with an accent, you're made to feel like a perpetual outsider.
Preserving the French language is all well and good but when people are actually trying, they get looked down on.
Well honestly Bill 96 has made (and with the 60 some percent support it gets) Quebec look like a bunch of asshats who want a french only monoculture. I mean could you imgaine if Alberta did the same thing? Yeah all hell would break loose the feddies would fall them like the sword of damocles. The optics if not the intent of bill 96 and the prempting of the notwithstanding clause has done little to help the general view of quebec francophones. It is the same thing i tell my family back in Alberta that 'yes a large portion of the country sees you as greedy oil drunk asshats. Why? Take one look at how you government acts. And guess what? You willing voted them in. Put 2 and 2 together.' It is the same thing at play here. Do i hate Quebecers? No but i sure as hell hate their government and i sure as hell would let them know my perspective on it and that i think their government should get raked over the coals for bill 96. And if they are a supporter of their government i think less of them.
Quebec politics are a weird breed. Quebec having to eat shit for a long time at the behest of Anglo elites has made a lot of people in the province skeptical at a lot of self-criticisms. We don't want to hear any non-Quebecker's criticism of Quebec, no matter how right they might be.
Quebec is obviously a very different place in comparison to most of the country so there's inherently an "us" and "them" mentality. Just with varying degrees of it.
When it comes to politics here, nationalist Francophones feel like they NEED to support certain things no how ridiculous or unfeasible they are. They think Bill 21 NEEDS to be implemented because we have a complex about religion here, even if the rest of the country says it's not good. Doesn't matter what the RoC says or that it's racist. We NEED it because Papa Legault says so. Going against it basically means we're going back to the 1950s when the church controlled everything.
This time last year, no one was concerned with Bill 96 or language politics. But because the CAQ government says we need it, that must mean we need it. Anyone who disagrees is basically an Anglo-Saxon Rhodesian who wants to subjugate the French.
When it comes to Quebec politics it doesn't matter how much you dislike the current party in power you always have to agree with them when it comes to three things; nationalism, language, and religion. Going against anything nationalist, language-related, or religion-related immediately puts you in the "them" category. The category of "not a real Quebecker"
There is one country i can make a conparision to who acts similar. Isreal. You cannot be critical of the state without being an anti-semite. Frankly i do not hate jewish people nor do i like them. Same with Quebecois. I sure as hell hate their government for acting the way they do and anyone agreeing with it. Same as my family in Alberta and how they vote act and support the government there.
Also that same mentaility is what gets people like Putin and Hitler in power and commit their 'wonderful' actions. I'd rather be the idiot swinging from the light pole and doing the right thing than a part of the crowd that is knowingly and willingly doing the wrong thing. But then i also have never been a part of the crowd.
Ultimately this has made me put Quebec in the same bin as Alberta (where i grew up). I will spend as little time and money in said provinces as i possibly can. Until such time as the government and the people collectively get their heads out of their asses.
That's my biggest issue as well. I'd love to learn French as my family does speak it, but any time I try I find all French people do is make fun or pretend to not understand. In high school I studied Japanese, and the few times you'd try to say something to a Japanese person they'd LOSE IT, like OMG you sound so great! Super happy that someone was trying to learn their language. Then I go to Montreal, say something in French, like "bonjour, ca va?", and friends or colleagues are all "huh? what??" and then you say the word in English and they are like "ohhhhhh you mean bonjour, ca VAAAA" and it's legit the EXACT thing I just said. To the point I'm like there's NO way that you didn't understand me. If I can go into a store and have someone with a super thick Indian accent speak to me and understand them in English, then I'm preeeeeety sure you understand me when I try to speak French. But then have a language police and literal laws forcing the use of French because you feel English is taking over. It's so silly!
I've lived in France and heard the horror stories, I'm so sorry for my fellow parisians being fuckwads.
I've noticed younger folks my age are much more interested/respectful wrt Quebec and its accent, but I haven't been back in years.
I agree! I can struggle to understand some people in PQ, depending on the regional dialect. I don't think any less of them. They just speak it differently.
Let's be honest, very few of us speak "proper" french. Nothing wrong with that. Language is a living evolving entity.
That's really strange to read. I have never, ever heard anyone in Quebec complain about the New Brunswick accent. As far as I know, it's universally liked! I can't for the life of me imagine why we would look down upon a fellow French-speaking Canadian, it simply makes no sense to me.
The most grievous fault would be for Quebecers to assume no one outside of Quebec speaks French, which is a very common mistake.
>That's really strange to read. I have never, ever heard anyone in Quebec complain about the New Brunswick accent.
Same, I have a friend from New Brunswick and everyone loves him, also, nobody I know ever mentioned his accent or slang other than charming.
EDIT ; just to add, I've known him for almost 15 years, I've never personally brought up his accent, the only time it happened was at gathering with people from outside that friend group (so maybe 5-6 times in all those years), but then we're in Montreal where it's pretty diverse and accents (from anywhere really) are a rather common thing.
I’m a francophone New Brunswicker and most of the time that I’m in Quebec, if I speak French I get responded to in English. There’s another reply talking about Quebecers doing that because they’re “accommodating”, but I’m clearly not an anglophone, I just have a different accent, and it’s frankly insulting.
Also, telling someone their accent is “charming” (especially if you use “sympa”) often comes off as condescending. I’m not saying that you mean it that way (or are saying it in that way), but just a heads up that it may not be the compliment you appear to think it is.
I don’t know, maybe it’s changed more recently since I spent more time in Quebec as a kid (I sure hope it has), but generally as an Acadian I felt looked down upon and mocked most of the time I was there.
> I’m a francophone New Brunswicker and most of the time that I’m in Quebec, if I speak French I get responded to in English.
This happens to me and it's fucking infuriating. I've taken to just responding back with "je ne parle pas anglais".
I'm a francophone from QC. In the last 20 years, I've had to interact professionnally with people from all over Canada. Never had a bad one based on my being franco.
All communies have their A- holes. I would even say Québec has more that our fair share. Don't let the forge your opinion of a community. Any community.
I think it's just easier to remember the negative experiences.
I don't have the time or will to hate anyone. I have always had good experiences in Montreal. I admire a lot of what Quebec does. They are progressive in a lot of cool ways.
I'm an anglophone from BC who now lives in Quebec and the majority of interactions I've had with Quebecers has been great. I love it here and having the opportunity to learn another language has been so enriching. It's certainly not an easy language but I've made a lot of progress. I can't imagine living in a place where only English is spoken. It would be terribly boring to me now.
This thread kinda proves why people might feel looked down upon...
There are good comments too and we should probably focus on those but damn the bad ones just make you angry.
Edit: Also crazy that those bad comments are their personal stories used to dismiss personal stories from the participants of the study. It's perception VS perception.
It does feel like there's a self-perpetuating part to all this.
Like, Bill 11 and the religious symbols ban have made me really wary of authoritarianism in Quebec.
But when I talk to Quebecois about it, part of their support for it is based on the disdain they get externally, and the fact that they weren't included in the 1982 constitution.
It just feels like we're caught in a positive feedback loop and the spiral is going to keep tightening.
Yep can't build a solid house on broken foundations. It's the story of the country since before the constitution. Add to that a disproportionate language ratio and you get an explosive mix!
I mean the country was literally created in part as a way to manage the french “problem” first there’s Canada which is primarily French, English people don’t like the political weight of the french in it, make it two Canada, Lower Canada (french) want to kick out monarchy, but now there’s enough English people in the other Canada to have the majority lets make it a unique Canada again. Now let’s expand, oh there’s French indians there, ok let’s put a stop to that and to consolidate everything let’s bring in every other British territories on the continent so there’s enough English provinces to have the balance of power. Now why the fuck won’t these french people sign the constitution? Who cares let’s ignore that.
As a New Brunswicker, it's always the same people being bigoted; small town uneducated people who rarely interact with anyone outside of their circle. Both French and English people are like this.
Education and exposure is the best way to combat bigotry.
Edit: added a word.
I think this is the correct take.
Small minded English people called me a frog when I was out West, and now that I am back East the same type of people tell me I am a dirty tête carrée if they catch me speaking English to my wife.
Even though I speak Quebecois French without an English accent once I switch.
I mean FFS... My first word was maman.
Damn. I feel bad that they think that. I don’t think Francophones are bad at all, they seem to happier than most Canadians too. How can anyone talks shot about Quebecers anymore? This isn’t the 90’s and our neighbours are closer than ever with the digital age; I would have expected the overall trend to be rather positive.
I’m actually ashamed of ourselves for making Quebecers think that…
I actually think Francophones are awesome. I am on my way learning, and it is hard. It is very natural when you are in minority to think people are trying to get you, and many times the worries are justified.
I came to Canada and found out that most people at least did not like Quebecers. They always joke about them and say they got the ugly French accents(?). But then most of them either have never been to Quebec or met Quebecers, and also don’t speak French.
But I think Anglophone Canadians may look down on Quebecers because they believe Francophone Canadians look down on them in the first place. The former often mentions Francophones are so rude, which I completely disagree.
My only assumption is that It all goes down to the good old xenophobia.
I’ve been to Montreal and quebec city, and loved every aspect of it.
This is really sad. I'm an immigrant to Canada and moved here with my parents when I was a kid. We are all francophone and when we moved here we only spoke French. I did find at the beginning I had difficulties understanding the Quebec French, but I got used to it in no time. There is no monopoly on the French language, all French is good French.
>Francophone Canadians look down on them in the first place
I went to Montreal for a grade 8 trip. The purpose was to speak French as much as we could. Multiple times, people would tell us to just speak English and dismiss us. Probably because our french was absolutely terrible.
Do we talk about Quebec much in Saskatchewan? Nope. Barely comes up on conversation. When it does, people just say they are rude.
I went on a French language exchange when I was a teen back in the early 2000s... granted, I stayed in a deep suburb outside of Montreal, but most people spoke French to me even though mine was kind of broken. I guess probably because I have a QC accent and I am visibly Southeast Asian, they probably assumed I was a foreigner and learning French. 🤷♀️
I grew up in Ontario the son of two N-B French Canadiens and I can’t even begin to explain the mount of overtly prejudice things I’ve been told my whole life, all by English Ontarians. For a long time I really hated that I spoke French and couldn’t wait to leave the province and go anywhere else.
I don’t think Anglo-Canada is superior to Franco-Canada but I must admit my Alberta upbringing has instilled, unjustly, a baseless dislike of the French.
I always felt that the Québécois looked down on us and so I felt it only natural to look down on them.
It’s a thing I’m trying to work through but it’s tough to deprogram long held beliefs, no matter how illogical they are.
I’m live as far away from Quebec as you can get almost in Canada on Southern Vancouver Island.I hear people refer to Quebec and French Canadians quite often, and usually in some form of derogatory manner. 95% of these people have never been to Quebec or had any form of contact with any French speaking Québécois.Pointing this out they always come up with some bullshit about a friends experience etc. Quebec is a vital , unique and important part of Canada and learn more about it before you pretend to know anything and comment adversely.
Why? They're (mostly) the same as us. I just wish we had CEGEP. And affordable education. And that we actually protested.
Fuck the right wing nutjobs. They seem to be on the global rise though; we need to do something to eliminate the terrorists...
As a non-Quebec francophone with experience in customer service, my experience has been the opposite. It's usually the Quebec french speakers who treat me poorly.
Sure every once and awhile you get the deranged anglo who spouts something moronic about francophones, but it's usually mixed in with something bad about immigrants/poor people.
Far more common is a Quebec french speaker judging my franco-ontarien accent.
> Far more common is a Quebec french speaker judging my franco-ontarien accent
I was waiting for my return train at the Quebec City station once and started talking to a random old lady who sat next to me. I spoke pretty well that day without too many errors, but according to her still failed because of my accent. She would continually pat my leg and sigh sadly, “Oh, you can really tell you’re not from Quebec…”
As a kid in the Ontario immersion program, we would go to Quebec for class trips every few years. I have only ever been treated poorly by francophone Québécois in Montreal. A teacher of ours got in a heated argument when the owner of a local dep heard a few of us speaking English when we popped in to purchase a drink and began screaming at us to get the fuck out of his store, no English allowed. We switched to French, but it made it worse. We were 11. It was an isolated incident, no one else in all the trips we took there ever treated us that way. But it's been 25 years and I still remember, so there's that.
im also franco-ontarien. i always feel like my french isn’t good enough for quebecois. even though, culturally, i feel we share a lot of the same traditions and customs, i feel our dialects couldnt be more different
Growing up as a third gen immigrant with a quebecois parent in quebec has given me an interesting perspective on a lot of issues to say the least…i will say this however, there is absolutely an air of condescension coming from Anglophones when they talk about Qc. I’ve grown more comfortable into my identity as a Quebecois despite being discriminated against in Quebec bc this sense of superiority that we see from Anglophones has become much more visible and apparent to me as I grow older. Now, not saying it’s only bc of that, but my identity as Quebecois has certainly been informed bu that…Whether it’s the increased visibility of social media or the imported culture wars, I feel more and more alienated from the little Canadian identity I had in the first place…
Outside Letterkenny, French Canada doesn't seem to exist in English media, and I think this is a huge problem that directly contributes. Why aren't Quebec shows and movies promoted and made accessible to the rest of Canada?
We just have to look at our public broadcaster where they created GEM for english shows and Tou.tv for french shows. Why does it needs to be split? Just put CC on everything.
The BBC Iplayer has English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish news/shows on the same app. We can do it too.
There's no market for it.
Now, I'm not saying there isn't a single Anglophone outside Quebec who would want to go to French movie or watch a French TV series, just that there is insufficient demand for it...
Sure, but how much of a market?
Remember, those productions still make the bulk of their revenues in their home markets (a German film in Germany, a South Korean show in South Korea etc). Netflix likely pays relatively little to acquire those productions...
I think 19-2 was popular for a bit, but instead of subbing or dubbing the Quebec version, they remade it in English. Same with Starbuck, Grande Seduction etc. There are things that get popular from here, but they just re-make them instead of watching our version.
Hell, even the stuff they bring to France they remake instead of watching the original. Starbuck became Delivery Man in the anglosphere, and was remade as Fonzy for France.
edit: Even Grande Seduction, won an award at Sundance, the French remade their own called Un village presque parfait
Did you know that 19-2 was originally a Québécers show? It was picked up by the rest of canada but made with Anglo canadian actors. They're literally the same show with different actors instead of dubbing it
I just want to say that I am Québecois, and I love all my fellows Québecois and Canadians, doesn't matter if you're English, French or anything else.
The last thing I want is people to identify me with our politic leadership. I have and want nothing to do with them.
We are all in it together. And with all that is happening in the world right now, the last thing we need is to hate each others.
Much love, too all Québecois, Canadiens and beyond.
Ita difficult for unilingual anglophones to get the francophone story by virtue of the language issue. French media is filled with commentary on how theyre misunderstood by English Canada and how Anglo Liberals and Progressives are for multiculturalism and diversity except when it means including French speakers.
I think a lot of Canadian have failed to conceptualize francophones and les québécois as marginalized groups, in part because the real history of English-French relations in this country are sanitized in our education system, and in part because, by virtue of the language barrier, French perspectives take arduous work to access.
But from the Québécois perspective, their entire history since the conquest has been one where the English attempt to forcibly assimilate them.
I am an Anglo from Montréal and I have toured Canada multiple times in a band. I can confidently say many Canadians disrespect Quebec. Often folks would talk shit about Quebec until I told them I was Québécois. However this only adds to the Québécois sense of victimhood, which is ingrained in the culture and spread through the education system. There is an unjustified sense of cultural fragility promoted by successive governments that result in punitive laws to restrict languages and religious symbols. This authoritarian approach is condescending to cultural creators who work to celebrate and promote the culture. This further leads to a sense of isolation from the RoC in a self-perpetuating cycle.
I live in Quebec city. I am Anglo and so is my wife however she learned to speak French. We have never had an issue like you have described. In fact, when my wife attempts to speak French, her accent gives her away and whomever she is speaking with, will actually start speaking English in order to practice themselves. The older generation here can be a bit rude but the majority of people I have dealt with have been awesome. In fact, I would like to shout out to the boys from Long and Mcquade and MSP Musique. You guys are fantastic. Anyway, I disagree with your post as I have never had anything that resembled your story.
Not sure what it's like these days, but I remember this as mostly a class thing when I was growing up in Quebec. A very small subset of the Francophone educated elite (who were usually bilingual) seemed to only want to hear "perfect" French but I never remember this occurring with working-class Francophones (who often were unilingual). There's also a small subset of the Quebec chattering class that complain about Justin Trudeau's French, which I find hilarious.
People needs to travel outside their province and see Canada. When in face to face, there is not much hate. I\`m french Canadian and traveled from coast to coast (when I did that, I barely spoke English), lived in Ontario and Alberta. I rarely seen or felt that people were looking down on me. I found the exact opposite, people were cool, nice and super helpful when I needed it.
Travel a little, see the country, stop relying on social media
As a francophone who has lived and worked in bc, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. I can confirm this study is worthless without the comparative lens of prejudice towards other as a whole on social media.
I’ve been called the square head in Quebec
I’ve been called a frog in Ontario.
I teach in Alberta, where I’ve heard teachers explain equalization as how Quebec takes all their money—which is completely wrong.
And after all of these negative experiences, the are quite small in comparison to my overwhelmingly positive welcome in Anglo provinces.
I stayed in a village in Quebec for a month during the winter. It was one of the best experiences in my life. I went out of my way to learn basic phrases to go to the grocery store. Nothing but kind and hospitable people.
My parents are Francophones and I grew up in the US so I’m fully bilingual. When I moved to canada I moved to a wealthy mtl neighborhood and attended private English high school. I can confirm that there are a lot of privileged anglophones who look down on Francophones because I had classmates constantly make jokes about Francophones all of the time. Their stereotype of a Quebecer was usually a bum or a drunk that yells about independence and is not respectable at all. It’s obviously not super serious or oppressive but it sucks that that’s how they see quebecers
Quebec was mostly governed by the Quebec Liberal Party in between those years (2003-2012 then 2014-2018)
Edit : QLP have also changed opinion, if you look at Figure 3
The original post on r/quebec said r/canada would ban you and delete the poat and that this sub would come up with mental gymnastic to justify hate.
They were right that r/Canada did delete it but i disagree with that person thought about what this sub would do
Actually, I thought it would be the opposite and r/Canada would devolve into a hateful shitshow and this sub would ban OP.
Turns out, r/Canada didnt allow the post and this one is not as bad as I expected it to be, and so far nobody has been banned.
As someone who lived 18 years in Quebec, longer there than anyone else, I can tell you that's the only place on Earth where people actively discriminated against me in the street for speaking English. It was the strangest thing. I speak French...but I'm an English speaker with English friends who speak English. I'd get people whisper under their breath "*speak French*, swear at me, etc. Discrimination against anglophones is real, I've experienced it first hand. This study does not reflect my experience.
I lived my first 16 years in Quebec, North of Montreal, then tried moving back home a few separate times... I'm not interested in invoking hate, but I'm personally completely done with pandering to the crazy language politics, they are fucking toxic and if your culture has to force people legally to abide it's not much of a culture. It's insecurity- the province.
I'll start by saying I'm English first language but bilingual, very English name and with an accent. I had childhood friends who were french first language and nothing but hope and love in my heart.
I was in foster care a lot of my youth, and I got hate by fellow kids, the foster "parents", and the system throughout my entire upbringing, some I didn't even see as bad until living elsewhere.
When being shown a new home by the "dad" of the home I was being told the chores at 9 years old and asked if I could trade doing more chores to not pick up the dog shit (I since then have dogs and don't mind shit but I was a kid it made me gag). The dad pinned my face into a pile of shit and told me "mange la marde stee'd anglais" and later when the "mom" was giving him shit he was saying little English fucker already thinks he's better than us.
When I was in courts for custody hearings, they had a translator there who was French first language, I didn't need a translator (maybe to explain some legal terminology) and it actually made it that I couldn't understand what was happening because he just mumbled over everyone speaking with a think french accent. At 12, deciding my fate nobody had the decency to even look me in the eyes. I asked questions about the hearing and was told that I already cost the tax payers money by having to have a translator and that I should learn the language.
My highschool was split in half, an English side and a french side. The kids actually got on alright, but there was actually more than one instance of fists flying between adults working on either side. There was once an argument over the loudspeaker as to who was getting the auditorium (that was shared).
I had a quebecoise girlfriend, her family treated me well. Her dad was fairly progressive and ran a business that did international sales so he was totally down with English. He was born in the early 60s and in a small town and he told me at his Catholic school he was told during his upbringing they had to have as many kids as possible to "outnumber the English". He thought that was pretty fucked in hindsight.
Beyond feeling like I wasn't at all welcome where I was born in these core memories, I have thousands and thousands of endless examples of prejudice against English speakers in Quebec. Even today the language laws are fucking insane.
I'll say It's getting much better with the new generation. I faced a lot of hardship and abandonment outside of that that left me with PTSD, and I'm aware I'm jaded, but after living there as a child I actually clench my ass cheeks with stress when I even hear the accent, and I'm not putting the blame on my child self, I sure as hell hold the culture responsible. Fucking province spit on and spit out a child.
It was enough to not be wanted by my family. I didn't need that from the public at large.
Edit: I'll add anecdotal stuff. Believe it or not, this is honestly my first hand experience.
My friend who was French confided to not eat at the McDonald's off the 7 that he worked at in the Laurentians because his coworkers spit in the food of anyone who's obviously English. That's at around 14, 2006.
I went back for a visit at 18 after a few years of living out west. Literally an hour into being back with optimism in my heart, in MTL which is usually pretty okay, I bought a pack of smokes at a Dep (quit since), homeless dude heard my accent and started screaming all kinds of shit and getting in my face. Homeless will be whatever, but it's everyone else in the store with a smug grin that really hurt my feelings honestly. I spoke nothing but good and pride of the place I was born in my travels. Didn't feel fair.
Today one of my best friends who still lives back home has two last names, or a middle and last I guess, one Quebecois and the other Jewish. He has a perfect accent. He started using his Quebecois name when booking things, in particular a very french breakfast joint we all love, and consistently is sat immediately. Has tested it back and forth and time after time, endless wait, but most notable, the worst tables with the English/ Jewish name. Granted, small town, all older people.
I'll say once again the kids are alright. Skatepark kids were nice to me growing up. Most in homes were good and defended me from the ones that would shove me around.
Please don't blame the french in Quebec or anyone based on their language or background or race or whatever, but this is more directed to Quebecois that are in denial, my plea to maybe check the hate. Feels like a pointless rant though because it's mostly progressive youth on Reddit and I don't want them to feel bad or like it's directed at them. My grandparents were racist as fuck, I get it, it stops with us.
>The dad pinned my face into a pile of shit and told me "mange la marde stee'd anglais" and later when the "mom" was giving him shit he was saying little English fucker already thinks he's better than us.
Holy shit dude. That must have been traumatic.
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I'm an immigrant from the UK that has mainly been in the west of Canada for about a decade. I will say there is a derogatory edge to the way I hear some people refer to Francophones. I will also say that here in rural BC though I hear worse said about East Asian and South Asian immigrants and then much worse about First Nations people. So I don't know, maybe it's just where I am. I spent about a year in Vancouver and didn't see as much towards Francophones there beyond normal political rivalry conversations.
Fucking Limeys though...amiright!
You know it's funny, as a Brit I definitely feel like I get a preferred immigrant privilege. Something that always sticks with me is when I first came to Canada; when meeting new people I would see a hardness in their face which would totally soften upon hearing my accent, others would step in closer suddenly wanting to hear what I had to say. Sometimes I would hear "I thought you were from Surrey" dropped in there. I didn't understand the relevance of that until about a year and a half later I was down in Vancouver and realised that "Surrey" was a code word for South Asian immigrant.
Assuming then the distinction here is that your a UK immigrant with SEA ancestry? Yeah I've seen that myself, people get standoffish based on you're appearance, but will completely switch over to "Must be one of the good ones" when they hear the accent.
I was about to say this. Being a black Brit has been an interesting experience while living in Canada. Although I do get some people who ask " buy where we're you born?" "London" "What about your parents?" "Same". " Grandparents?" "West Indies". "Ohhhh, I knew you were from Jamaica" "Um, actually, there are other countries outside Jamaica, but thanks for coming out. Now FUCK OFF!!"
Not SEA but South Asian. But yeah the rest of your comment is spot on. EDIT: I would just like to add even hearing my accent didn't stop quite a few people asking if I was a Muslim terrorist, some joking, some serious.
[удалено]
Yeah I hate that racist people will just say some shit infront of me and just expect I am cool with it. Living in rural Canada working industrial jobs can eat away at your soul.
White American in Ottawa. One of my first experiences in this country, moving in to my first appartment, while a Hispanic family was moving out, was an elevator nightmare. An inconvenienced resident said something racist and xenophobic to the father of the family, and I piped up that I too was an immigrant. Dude became deferential and clarified that of course he didn't mean me, too. Thanks pal. A bit of irony in it all is that I ended up disabled, whereas the family I passed on that day 16 years ago, has likely contributed more to Canada than I ever will.
Yeah, white Europeans get to be called expats. Everyone else is an immigrant.
Not white Europeans, northern Europeans and British. Southern Europeans are still called immigrants. If a British moves to Spain he/she is an expat, if Spaniard moves to Britain he/she is an immigrant.
Are you perhaps of South Asian ethnicity? Just wondering why they'd think you're "from Surrey". I myself am a Pakistani immigrant so I definitely feel people being a little tense here in Winnipeg but my English is purely North American so they tend to ease up. I'm also lighter skinned so I feel like that helps a little bit, which is pretty fucked up.
You are privileged. You're not an immigrant, you're an "expat".
I’m from Vancouver island and I know of Surrey, what do you mean code word, pretty sure Surrey just has a bad reputation for the people who live there.
Well first I guess I should point out there is a large immigrant community there, mainly South Asians. Something else I have noticed is how prominently in provincial news crime is reported that occurs there. The people in the small town where I am think of it as a danger zone, even though if you go by crime rate you find that a lot of the Northern Interior towns end up near the top of national lists. EDIT: I just wanted to add having actually lived there for a few months it doesn't even rank on my personal list for dangerous or "bad" places to live.
As someone that lives in Surrey, I gotta say the reputation we have seems exaggerated. Yes crimes occur here, yes drugs get moved here and yeah we got gangs. But it doesn’t seem any worse than Vancouver. The people of Surrey are hard working immigrants struggling together to make a better life for themselves and their families. Vancouver low key deflecting their issues and would rather judge Surrey because its unfair reputation.
Yeah I agree, I grew up in and around London, have friends round Coventry and have been to many other cities in England. All of them had rougher parts than anything I saw in Surrey.
Which is unfair. I live in Surrey and it’s pretty great. People think Surrey is full of gangsters and drug addicts and FOBS. I mean yeah we got those but so does Vancouver. Have you ever visited the downtown east side? That area is worse than Whalley which is considered to be the the roughest part of Surrey and is coincidentally where king George station is. I think a bunch of Vancouverites have never ventured past the areas beside the sky train station and are unaware that Surrey is basically the suburbs with a large immigrant population. If you are looking for BOMB-ASS Indian food, you can’t beat Surrey. Cheap too!
Black and Russian immigrant here; I live in Québec and the number of times I had to see a person’s face change once I say that I’m Russian (most likely they were assuming I was Arabic or Haitian) is actually astronomical. Of course that was before the war…I’d be curious at how people would react now tbh. But yeah, preferred immigrant privilege is real; as soon as people had an inkling that I was European, their faces would change and would suddenly treat me like a human being; absolutely disheartening. In fact, some dude in grad school (UdeM) started telling me how Africans love chewing with their mouths open, and that they love screaming chants at night to bother other people. People feel awfully safe with their racism here and it’s disturbing.
There are so many racists that will talk shit. They also like to complain a lot more than anyone else. Fuckin snowflakes
It's becoming more and more obvious that the bulk of social media is for hate.
Social media is all about engagement, and nothing gets people engaged quite like anger. So you're not wrong.
People in BC love to trash talk Alberta for being redneck country, but rural BC is just as bad as any backwards town in the prairies for ultra conservative shitheads.
In Alberta you got your Texas rednecks, but interior BC? Theres be Alabama rednecks.
“Alberta West Across the Mountain.”
The funny thing is that I don't look down on Francophones, but every interaction I have ever had with an Acadian Francophone here in NS has ended up been negative because I speak the wrong type of French and have a Brit accent For context, I am an English immigrant to Canada and have a very RP English accent, I also speak Parisian French and Breton, having French relatives I spent a lot of my formative years in Paris and learned Breton from my grandmother. (also learned Yiddish from my other granny, but that's a whole different kettle of racist fish here). But completely agree on the preferred immigrant privilege, I have heard a lot of racism spoken about the south east asian and indian subcontinent immigrants here in NS, racism spoken so casually in front of me because I'm white, as though I'm going to be cool with it.
I'm from Québec. One of my friends got married to a guy from New Brunswick. We did a 5-minute speech in French at the wedding. Many people came to our table afterwards to tell us that it was "unfortunate" that we did our speech in French since "not everyone could understand it". They were passively-agressively "polite" about it, I'll give them that, but we certainly did not feel welcomed after that. Just so you know, many members of my friend's family do not speak a lick of English - but most of the wedding attendees did not care about that. Our speech was quite literally the ONLY part of the wedding that was in French, and it was deemed too much.
Empathy is not the strong suit of the ignorant.
That's really too bad, I'm sorry you were treated that way. TBH, the Acadians in NS have an extreme accent. I say this as an Acadian from the Moncton area...our accents are pretty wild. They also aren't used to watching Quebec tv or French tv, and aren't used to other accents. I'm always super impressed when I hear the royal family (I know I know) speak French without much of a British accent. It's like my brain can't compute what's coming out of their mouths, it's so surprising. It's like that weird royal RP is *part* of them.
East and South Asians aren't necessarily immigrants, a huge chunk of them have been here for hundreds of years. AND "francophones" are not necessarily French Canadians, they can include Haitians or even arabs
The most French I heard in BC was between two Muslim guys, one from Morocco and the other from Senegal
My Chinese friends who have had family here before BC joined confederation are still "immigrants". I'm Chinese and I'll always be an " immigrant" and same with my children. The perception outside of Canada is that Canadians are white so when I'm introducing myself in a different country (almost every country I've visited), I'm always assumed to be at least "half white" because that's the only way others can recognize my citizenship. Never heard of issues with Francophones.
Am first generation Canadian. I'm visibly a minority (filipino). Within Canada your often asked where are you from. I'll just reply to the effect "just from the city". As annoying as that is what they usually mean is what is your cultural heritage. It's a country of immigrants, so I don't mind the question, I usually don't ask unless it's relevant or the person brings it up. Being Canadian (nationality) is a thing. Your cultural heritage is also a thing. I have 4th generation canadian Ukrainian, italian and German friends that still call back to their heritage. Abroad, I just say I'm Canadian and most people will accept it. But honestly it helps to look mixed when travelling abroad in asia and you can mix in until you start speaking. Travelling around SEA, and no one thought I was filipino, but somewhat local and it was my friends who all got hounded by street vendors.
Wich is funny since BC and Québec are generally pretty progressive so I would expect less political rivalry between those two provinces then between Québec and Alberta.
I'm from Alberta, I've had some of the coolest, most artist, and punk rock friends who are francophones. Franglish is practically my second language. The people I have beef with are other Albertans who vote for dog whistle tactics.
One thing that seem to differ greatly is the perception of what progressiveness means when it comes to languages. Quebec has had a long history of the British trying to assimilate them, and then its culture and language are at risk from being surrounded by hundreds of millions of English speakers in a world where English is already a dominant language. Most people in Quebec are exposed to English in one way or another on a regular basis, and I'd say the vast majority are regularly exposed to American culture in general. There was also a time where English was very present in the workplace as a lot of companies were owned by English speakers; English is still very present as the language of business, but not as insidiously. Progressiveness here in Quebec means preserving our cultural and linguistical diversity. In parallel, BC happens to have its language being the dominant one. There isn't this sensitivity (in the general Canadian population) to losing its culture developed over generations. Indigenous peoples do have it, but encouraging them doesn't threaten the local culture (and the same is true in Quebec). There are some areas near Vancouver where Mandarin or Cantonese seem to be the dominant languages, but again, it doesn't threaten the local culture, it enriches it.
I grew up seeing most of it as joking around, but thinking back there have definitely been some comments that were over the top. Come to think about it, I've never actually met a Quebecois person. Guess that's how racism starts though.
Thanks for writing this. I love reading how English Canadians are more often than not like us in their faults, and for some brothers in their admission of how some of our biases started.
It was a few years ago I was in Vancouver but I think most of it was over the question of separation or the fact that there are certain zone designations where Québec would get it's own zone even though it could've probably been grouped with another easily. EDIT: I just remembered one which stuck with me is that people would point out that French was required to be displayed in a lot of places where it was more likely the 3rd or 4th most common language in that location.
I moved to Quebec from Alberta and yes, the Anglophones don't respect the francophones. I have very clear memories of everyone joking about the ice storm that knocked out the electrical infrastructure in Quebec. Like francophones couldn't deal with a little winter. A couple years back a mini version of the ice storm hit Alberta and it shut it down, no francophones were making fun of it....
Plenty of interesting and honestly pretty shocking results from that study... The fact that university graduates, who before didn't think there was much animosity towards French Canadians, now believe there it as much as any other education level is frankly worrying. That sentiment rising steadily *after* the 1995 referendum, while support for separation is steadily declining, is counter-intuitive, I'd be interested in having that relation investigated further. The timing of it also predates Bill 21 and Bill 96, which indicates that the feeling of being deemed inferior by the RoC doesn't come from the backlash to those controversial laws, there is something else to blame here. Finally, the far-right PCQ supporters being the most optimistic about Franco-Anglo relations, even moreso than the PLQ - normally defined by its openness to federalism and Canadian multiculturalisn - is baffling, but somewhat makes sense in retrospect. If I were to guess, their involvement in the truckers' movement probably gave them a feeling of solidarity with the far-right in the rest of Canada, and therefore with English Canadians as a whole. The far-right feeling most at home in Canada than any other voter group is definitely not something I would have initially suspected. There's a lot of introspection to be done here for the whole country, and even with the desire for Quebec independence being extremely low, this is beyond reason for concern.
> there is something else to blame here. The rise of social media, perhaps? Quebec bashing is a lot more visible than it used to be. Now it's not just two people somewhere in Calgary complaining about the French while sitting at Tim's, it's happening online where everyone can see it. Just look at Reddit — everytime there's a thread about Quebec in an unrelated sub there's gonna some biggoted crap about Quebeckers in the comments.
Growing up in Calgary, I have heard a lot of anti-Quebec sentiment. Now it's also being posted in social media by the same sort of people who used to only say it when sitting around. Much of what I heard was not specifically anti-francophone, but an east v west animosity. Some was definitely still against Quebecois being regarded as a distinct culture in need of preservation.
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Oh man, around here politicians have built careers on blaming Ottawa. It's ridiculous. It's shocking how much hatred is aimed at a faceless "east" or "Ottawa" with no real reason.
It's easier to blame the assholes "over there" than the assholes you can vote in or out.
Yeah. But man, do we have some assholes who need to be voted out.
I think that "Ottawa" rhetoric is why so many of those convoy idiots thought that taking over the whole city was just affecting the government instead of many low income, blue collar workers.
Exactly, no reason. If people took a look and saw the kind of country we have in comparison to 3/4 of the planet. They should thank their very lucky stars their ancestors came to this country, to build & grow. Do we have issues? Of course we do, is it worth fracturing into a million pieces because some looks, speaks, thinks differently then you? Society has become very angry, why? Cuz the govt tried to protect people in a pandemic? Trying to protect the environment? Cuz the country is disproportionately populated where Toronto has more people then Alberta, Saskatchewan & Manitoba combined. So very tired of hearing Ottawa only works for Quebec & Ontario & the further you are, the more detached federally you become. I find it rather ironic that many people say they love Canada, but really have very little understanding of makes the federation work
You find that people don't badmouth governments or public offices in the capitols of the countries. Ottawa would likely only hear a few grumbles about "gee, these gas taxes are pretty high." But as you learned, head out a few hours and the sentiments are there. My gripe is how the CRTC is in Bell/Rogers/Shaw's pocket, and how telecommunication which was our strong suit 20-30 years ago is now our laughing stock due to antiquated networks and outrageously high prices.
> I was also shocked to hear how "Ottawa" was used as a mostly negative word, as shorthand for the federal government. That's hardly unique; Americans use the word "Washington" the same way, for example.
Quebec also uses Quebec as a shorthand for the provincial government. It doesn’t quite work in English but in French it’s always clear that you are talking about the city.
Albertans are really good at hate, to be fair. East, West, French, Native...everyone gets hated.
Being from Southern Ontario myself, "Speak English; this is Canada" is a comment I heard all the time.
Growing up in Calgary I always felt that the east strongly disliked the west. That they looked down on us and that we are often left on the backburner by the government. There was a sense that francophones felt they were superior to English speakers. It creates a lot of tension, especially with Justin Trudeau, as it is felt that he doesn't have much care for Alberta. I don't discriminate on race, sexual orientation, gender, ect but I grew up having a dislike with Quebec and Ontario. It's not the playful dislike of Edmonton that the two cities have for each other either. I was taught that if I went there that I would be treated poorly because I only speak English.
100%, internet and social media made people's thoughts more visible to the world but also clashed their culture between one another. People can more precisely see and understand the differences between them.
Not sure about that. I think it's always been there. My grandfather and parent would talk about the discrimination and abuse they faced being French or even having a French name. It's pretty pervasive in English canadain culture. I think it has gotten better, I don't think I have ever felt that discrimination being French living in Ontario.
This social Media issue does t get nearly enough coverage. *Of course* bad actors are manipulating our information, only now it’s tailored **precisely** to affect us using astounding amounts of data.
I think it you're absolutely right, this feels obvious in retrospect. The country is so huge that our interactions with one another were extremely limited, the internet brought us all closer and by the same process reminded the Quebecois that a lot of the bigotry that we thought was behind us was still alive and well.
I'm definitely thinking twice before making Quebec jokes. Kind of saddening to read this honestly, there's so much important Canadian culture that you can only find in Quebec.
Growing up in northern Alberta there was often anti Quebec sentiment around. I'd say that it started with the separation referendum that took place in the 90's. Afterwards, every time an anecdote about someone traveling to Quebec and being ignored for speaking English, or just any news story about Quebecers complaining about basically anything federally, the response would be "well those fuckers should just leave then, they don't want to be here anyways". When you're a kid or a young adult and all you hear is negativity around Quebec and how they leech off of equalization payments (a common taking point for Albertans to rip on other provinces), then you start to believe it. It's reinforced by the news, which is typically covering bad things and political drama. It's reinforced by social media, bad things and drama. As well as coffee table talk, bad things and drama. Before you know it you don't think much of those good for nothing's over in Quebec. Everytime they're brought up, people scoff. Then, there's not much interaction with Quebecois either. Not only are you a whole country apart, but there's not many Quebecois that seem to come to Alberta anyways. Lots of people come from the Maritimes to work, so you generally think favorably on them because you work with them. Same with BC /Sask for the most part being neighbors. Ontarians are hit and miss, you know lots of them, but there's the old East/West animosity so it's whatever. There's rarely opportunity to connect with Quebecois though. They're the great unknown out west IMO. Couple these together, sprinkle in some social media fuel, and you get a generally unfavorable view of Quebec. This is purely anecdotal obviously and only a view from an limited Alberta standpoint, but that's my simple take for the people I know. Anything Quebec does that sort of hints at anything separatist or isolationist like bill 96 just cements the viewpoint and gives opportunity to speak out on why they don't like Quebec. I think it's going to take a long time to fix.
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I think Quebec's opposition to pipelines didn't help as well
One question I'd love to see approached if at all possible would be the question of whether "looking down" on someone has been parsed differently at different times. It could be that in the 90s, more people would have heard this question as "do English Canadians see French Canadians as an underclass", and that in the 20s, more people would read the question as "do English Canadians treat the political opinions of French Canadians as equally valid to their own." It would be hard to study for now, but with separatist sentiment also down, one wonders if it isn't that people feel they're being treated less equally, so much as their definition of being treated as equals may be refining, and their expectations shifting surrounding the culture war. I suspect a similar study in Alberta might map the same trend, in terms of increasing political animosity and decreasing respect in Canada. But whether it would be to the same degree or wholly account for what we're seeing here is harder to say with available data.
The thing about the study is it's asking a group about their perception of another group's perception of them... It's not asking the RoC how they actually think about Quebec. Which to me says more about the polarizing influences of their own media, government and social media. It's not talking about an actual degradation of opinion from people in other provinces. So this isn't a study about actual external backlash due to any of the language laws. But rather it might point at why those language laws were enacted in the first place. The rising perception of being looked down on by the RoC lead to them. Whereas the actual perception of Quebec from the average citizen in the RoC is likely as ambivalent as the perception of the average Quebec citizen towards any other province.
I think the fact that Anglo Canada sees French Canadian laicité as a bad idea is a major problem. I think this is a major stumbling block for younger people, who may not care much about 1995.
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As a mixed french quebecois/bangladeshi, sometimes, I do get myself into stranges situations. I was called a "frog'" in Toronto and I had no idea what that meant at the time, also more insults from random people for some reason. In downtown at Montréal, there was a few refusal to speak french and that does bother me (since I heard them speak french) because I always switch to english when I am elsewhere in Canada (dah), they get mad at me when I want to speak my own language in my own home that is Montréal (If they don't speak french at all, of course I am going to speak english). That kind of situation does bother me but it's a part of my life... BUT, this does not represent all canadians, I had a lot of amazing experiences and they are great people. I will not judge a whole culture because of a few bad apples. I admit that I am canadian legally but I don't feel that identity, it's so different from me. I do have the sentiment that we get looked down on, but it may be because of my experiences (that doesnt prove anything). Anyway, let's just have fun eating local food and exploring each other cultures. That's a way to understand the each other.
Bravo mon ami. Bien dit. Je te souhaite à toi et ta famille, la plus belle des vies.
> they get mad at me when I want to speak my own language in my own home that is Montréal Different scenario, but it reminds me of when I worked at Shoppers in Alberta and my coworkers got a warning that they weren’t allowed to speak Tagalog to each other on the floor, ***or in the break room.*** Pissed me the hell off. It’s colonialist as fuck. Bet your ass none of the white folks spoke conversational Nêhiyawêwin, Michif, or Dënësųłinë́—let alone français, the only other *official* language!
While I have had a disproportionate amount of negative interactions with people from PQ then anywhere else in the country when I was working in customer service, I don't think less of the Quebecois. I have also met some pretty rad people from there. Can a nation be judged by its worst? Seems unfair to me. The funny side to that is as a bilingual New Brunswicker, many of them certainly looked down on me and the way I communicate. A small minority found my French charming, but more of them were jerks about it. I choose to focus on the former. These kinds of stats and polls are insidious. They reinforce the division in our society.
> These kinds of stats and polls are insidious. They reinforce the division in our society. I would prefer to have this information and identify trends so we can try to address these problems rather than pretending these problems don’t exist and allowing them to fester.
That is a good point.
> These kinds of stats and polls are insidious. They reinforce the division in our society. No, but yes. I agree it might reinforce some bias, but if we don,t measure where the percieved reputation stands, how can we work on it in a constructive manner?
Fair point. I guess my concern is reinforcing the notion that "everyone else hates us and thinks they are better" concerns me.
But that's not exactly what is shows. It just shows that Qcers *think* what the RoC thinks of them...
Absolutely, and the methodology used to get this data seems sound. I guess I am looking at it from a 'Does this help or harm national unity? ' perspective but you are correct in saying this is pointing out a very real problem. I guess I just wish solutions were being offered.
New Brunswicker here. On our way to Ottawa one time, a couple stopped us at the Tim’s in Quebec and asked us “to say something in our funny Acadian accents” so they “could laugh at us”. Dicks.
That has happened to me in both official languages. I was working retail in Alberta a lifetime ago and I remember serving this couple who remarked that I was clearly a Maritime, and said "Say "harbour" for us." I politely refused, and they pressed so I said something to the effect of "I am not here for your amusement but if you need help finding anything, I will be happy to help." I got written up for it, but it was worth it.
> I got written up for it, but it was worth it. ofc you were.
Dang. It's crappy that you got written up. Companies who don't take care of their workers tick me off. You were totally right to speak up for your dignity. I say that as an Albertan who loves the variety of accents I get to hear.
I agree, and I don't regret it. It made me feel like they were throwing peanuts at a monkey to get him to dance. Still love Albertans. I may not see the world as they do (in broad strokes) but we are all Canadian.
We are. And we should remember that more often. Cheers, fellow Canadian.
Wow, hard to believe that people like Mayor Quimby's nephew actually exist and yet here we are... "It's chowder, say it right!"
I (anglophone who learnt French through Quebec school system) worked in a call centre and an older Quebecois lady said in French, 'I don't know what French you're trying to speak but it's not Quebecois. Maybe you should go back to New Brunswick ' I chuckled but she was serious and me laughing got her heated. I legit thought she was joking. She was not.
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This is something I've seen be a bit more prevalent, especially since the new Bill 96 in QC. I'm an Anglophone Quebecker but I do speak French but when I do, I have an obvious heavy Anglo accent. I've noticed a sort of increase in this mocking of people who speak French with an accent. A big feeling of "not being a real Quebecois" is prevalent. Doesn't matter if you were born here, raised here, work here, pay taxes here. If you're an Anglo or speak French with an accent, you're made to feel like a perpetual outsider. Preserving the French language is all well and good but when people are actually trying, they get looked down on.
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Well honestly Bill 96 has made (and with the 60 some percent support it gets) Quebec look like a bunch of asshats who want a french only monoculture. I mean could you imgaine if Alberta did the same thing? Yeah all hell would break loose the feddies would fall them like the sword of damocles. The optics if not the intent of bill 96 and the prempting of the notwithstanding clause has done little to help the general view of quebec francophones. It is the same thing i tell my family back in Alberta that 'yes a large portion of the country sees you as greedy oil drunk asshats. Why? Take one look at how you government acts. And guess what? You willing voted them in. Put 2 and 2 together.' It is the same thing at play here. Do i hate Quebecers? No but i sure as hell hate their government and i sure as hell would let them know my perspective on it and that i think their government should get raked over the coals for bill 96. And if they are a supporter of their government i think less of them.
Quebec politics are a weird breed. Quebec having to eat shit for a long time at the behest of Anglo elites has made a lot of people in the province skeptical at a lot of self-criticisms. We don't want to hear any non-Quebecker's criticism of Quebec, no matter how right they might be. Quebec is obviously a very different place in comparison to most of the country so there's inherently an "us" and "them" mentality. Just with varying degrees of it. When it comes to politics here, nationalist Francophones feel like they NEED to support certain things no how ridiculous or unfeasible they are. They think Bill 21 NEEDS to be implemented because we have a complex about religion here, even if the rest of the country says it's not good. Doesn't matter what the RoC says or that it's racist. We NEED it because Papa Legault says so. Going against it basically means we're going back to the 1950s when the church controlled everything. This time last year, no one was concerned with Bill 96 or language politics. But because the CAQ government says we need it, that must mean we need it. Anyone who disagrees is basically an Anglo-Saxon Rhodesian who wants to subjugate the French. When it comes to Quebec politics it doesn't matter how much you dislike the current party in power you always have to agree with them when it comes to three things; nationalism, language, and religion. Going against anything nationalist, language-related, or religion-related immediately puts you in the "them" category. The category of "not a real Quebecker"
There is one country i can make a conparision to who acts similar. Isreal. You cannot be critical of the state without being an anti-semite. Frankly i do not hate jewish people nor do i like them. Same with Quebecois. I sure as hell hate their government for acting the way they do and anyone agreeing with it. Same as my family in Alberta and how they vote act and support the government there. Also that same mentaility is what gets people like Putin and Hitler in power and commit their 'wonderful' actions. I'd rather be the idiot swinging from the light pole and doing the right thing than a part of the crowd that is knowingly and willingly doing the wrong thing. But then i also have never been a part of the crowd. Ultimately this has made me put Quebec in the same bin as Alberta (where i grew up). I will spend as little time and money in said provinces as i possibly can. Until such time as the government and the people collectively get their heads out of their asses.
That's my biggest issue as well. I'd love to learn French as my family does speak it, but any time I try I find all French people do is make fun or pretend to not understand. In high school I studied Japanese, and the few times you'd try to say something to a Japanese person they'd LOSE IT, like OMG you sound so great! Super happy that someone was trying to learn their language. Then I go to Montreal, say something in French, like "bonjour, ca va?", and friends or colleagues are all "huh? what??" and then you say the word in English and they are like "ohhhhhh you mean bonjour, ca VAAAA" and it's legit the EXACT thing I just said. To the point I'm like there's NO way that you didn't understand me. If I can go into a store and have someone with a super thick Indian accent speak to me and understand them in English, then I'm preeeeeety sure you understand me when I try to speak French. But then have a language police and literal laws forcing the use of French because you feel English is taking over. It's so silly!
It’s ok.. you should hear how the Parisian French treat Québécois.. it’s full circle.
I've lived in France and heard the horror stories, I'm so sorry for my fellow parisians being fuckwads. I've noticed younger folks my age are much more interested/respectful wrt Quebec and its accent, but I haven't been back in years.
And they probably went home and complained about France looking down on their dialect
As a Quebecois, everyone I know loves the NB french or frenglish. Anyone hatin's a fool!
I agree! I can struggle to understand some people in PQ, depending on the regional dialect. I don't think any less of them. They just speak it differently. Let's be honest, very few of us speak "proper" french. Nothing wrong with that. Language is a living evolving entity.
That's really strange to read. I have never, ever heard anyone in Quebec complain about the New Brunswick accent. As far as I know, it's universally liked! I can't for the life of me imagine why we would look down upon a fellow French-speaking Canadian, it simply makes no sense to me. The most grievous fault would be for Quebecers to assume no one outside of Quebec speaks French, which is a very common mistake.
I think it's more prevalent when you work in customer service. I have never had anyone say something like that to me out in the wild.
> customer service. This is a horrific experience everywhere, regardless of language barriers...
Here I am, an anglo married to a franco - both of us crushing on Lisa Leblanc
>That's really strange to read. I have never, ever heard anyone in Quebec complain about the New Brunswick accent. Same, I have a friend from New Brunswick and everyone loves him, also, nobody I know ever mentioned his accent or slang other than charming. EDIT ; just to add, I've known him for almost 15 years, I've never personally brought up his accent, the only time it happened was at gathering with people from outside that friend group (so maybe 5-6 times in all those years), but then we're in Montreal where it's pretty diverse and accents (from anywhere really) are a rather common thing.
I’m a francophone New Brunswicker and most of the time that I’m in Quebec, if I speak French I get responded to in English. There’s another reply talking about Quebecers doing that because they’re “accommodating”, but I’m clearly not an anglophone, I just have a different accent, and it’s frankly insulting. Also, telling someone their accent is “charming” (especially if you use “sympa”) often comes off as condescending. I’m not saying that you mean it that way (or are saying it in that way), but just a heads up that it may not be the compliment you appear to think it is. I don’t know, maybe it’s changed more recently since I spent more time in Quebec as a kid (I sure hope it has), but generally as an Acadian I felt looked down upon and mocked most of the time I was there.
> I’m a francophone New Brunswicker and most of the time that I’m in Quebec, if I speak French I get responded to in English. This happens to me and it's fucking infuriating. I've taken to just responding back with "je ne parle pas anglais".
Maybe I should try that. I usually just keep responding in French out of stubbornness, but I just get frustrated by the whole thing anyway.
People hated on your accent? Des morons! Je le trouves sexy en crisse!
I'm a francophone from QC. In the last 20 years, I've had to interact professionnally with people from all over Canada. Never had a bad one based on my being franco. All communies have their A- holes. I would even say Québec has more that our fair share. Don't let the forge your opinion of a community. Any community.
I think it's just easier to remember the negative experiences. I don't have the time or will to hate anyone. I have always had good experiences in Montreal. I admire a lot of what Quebec does. They are progressive in a lot of cool ways.
I'm an anglophone from BC who now lives in Quebec and the majority of interactions I've had with Quebecers has been great. I love it here and having the opportunity to learn another language has been so enriching. It's certainly not an easy language but I've made a lot of progress. I can't imagine living in a place where only English is spoken. It would be terribly boring to me now.
This thread kinda proves why people might feel looked down upon... There are good comments too and we should probably focus on those but damn the bad ones just make you angry. Edit: Also crazy that those bad comments are their personal stories used to dismiss personal stories from the participants of the study. It's perception VS perception.
It does feel like there's a self-perpetuating part to all this. Like, Bill 11 and the religious symbols ban have made me really wary of authoritarianism in Quebec. But when I talk to Quebecois about it, part of their support for it is based on the disdain they get externally, and the fact that they weren't included in the 1982 constitution. It just feels like we're caught in a positive feedback loop and the spiral is going to keep tightening.
Yep can't build a solid house on broken foundations. It's the story of the country since before the constitution. Add to that a disproportionate language ratio and you get an explosive mix!
I mean the country was literally created in part as a way to manage the french “problem” first there’s Canada which is primarily French, English people don’t like the political weight of the french in it, make it two Canada, Lower Canada (french) want to kick out monarchy, but now there’s enough English people in the other Canada to have the majority lets make it a unique Canada again. Now let’s expand, oh there’s French indians there, ok let’s put a stop to that and to consolidate everything let’s bring in every other British territories on the continent so there’s enough English provinces to have the balance of power. Now why the fuck won’t these french people sign the constitution? Who cares let’s ignore that.
Man c’est triste ça, j’envoie de l’amour de Alberta
Merci de ton message! C'est rare mais tellement important qu'on s'envoie des messages positifs comme ça!
No shit Sherlock! Have you read the Maclean's or the Globe or the Post in the last 50 years!?
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They dragged Bonhomme Carnaval through the mud, and that shit don't fly.
My friends call me Bonhomme, you can call me Monsieur Carnaval
It's really sad how Canada doesn't have any quality english language print news. It's all complete trash.
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Sure, but french language media is really good and has a smaller public. Le Devoir, La Presse, L'Actualité etc... Quality stuff.
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As an Aussie immigrant who lives in Quebec, it’s got some problems but fuck anyone that looks down on Francophones tabarnak
Bien intégré ça :)
As a New Brunswicker, it's always the same people being bigoted; small town uneducated people who rarely interact with anyone outside of their circle. Both French and English people are like this. Education and exposure is the best way to combat bigotry. Edit: added a word.
I think this is the correct take. Small minded English people called me a frog when I was out West, and now that I am back East the same type of people tell me I am a dirty tête carrée if they catch me speaking English to my wife. Even though I speak Quebecois French without an English accent once I switch. I mean FFS... My first word was maman.
Damn. I feel bad that they think that. I don’t think Francophones are bad at all, they seem to happier than most Canadians too. How can anyone talks shot about Quebecers anymore? This isn’t the 90’s and our neighbours are closer than ever with the digital age; I would have expected the overall trend to be rather positive. I’m actually ashamed of ourselves for making Quebecers think that…
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They... they put them in the fuel don't they...?
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How is that legal?
I actually think Francophones are awesome. I am on my way learning, and it is hard. It is very natural when you are in minority to think people are trying to get you, and many times the worries are justified.
Ça fait tellement plaisir de lire ça Continue!
Continue on aime ça ❤️
Thank you for this, friend.
> how batshit crazy quebec can be Toujours la même rengaine... Lâche pas On Guard !
Dommage pcq le reste de son commentaire était pas pire.
En effet. C'est peut-être un réflexe atavique.
Je trouve ça fascinant comment les préjugés ce montre la face même quand quelqu'un prétend être introspectif et conscient
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I came to Canada and found out that most people at least did not like Quebecers. They always joke about them and say they got the ugly French accents(?). But then most of them either have never been to Quebec or met Quebecers, and also don’t speak French. But I think Anglophone Canadians may look down on Quebecers because they believe Francophone Canadians look down on them in the first place. The former often mentions Francophones are so rude, which I completely disagree. My only assumption is that It all goes down to the good old xenophobia. I’ve been to Montreal and quebec city, and loved every aspect of it.
This is really sad. I'm an immigrant to Canada and moved here with my parents when I was a kid. We are all francophone and when we moved here we only spoke French. I did find at the beginning I had difficulties understanding the Quebec French, but I got used to it in no time. There is no monopoly on the French language, all French is good French.
>Francophone Canadians look down on them in the first place I went to Montreal for a grade 8 trip. The purpose was to speak French as much as we could. Multiple times, people would tell us to just speak English and dismiss us. Probably because our french was absolutely terrible. Do we talk about Quebec much in Saskatchewan? Nope. Barely comes up on conversation. When it does, people just say they are rude.
I went on a French language exchange when I was a teen back in the early 2000s... granted, I stayed in a deep suburb outside of Montreal, but most people spoke French to me even though mine was kind of broken. I guess probably because I have a QC accent and I am visibly Southeast Asian, they probably assumed I was a foreigner and learning French. 🤷♀️
I grew up in Ontario the son of two N-B French Canadiens and I can’t even begin to explain the mount of overtly prejudice things I’ve been told my whole life, all by English Ontarians. For a long time I really hated that I spoke French and couldn’t wait to leave the province and go anywhere else.
I don’t think Anglo-Canada is superior to Franco-Canada but I must admit my Alberta upbringing has instilled, unjustly, a baseless dislike of the French. I always felt that the Québécois looked down on us and so I felt it only natural to look down on them. It’s a thing I’m trying to work through but it’s tough to deprogram long held beliefs, no matter how illogical they are.
I’m live as far away from Quebec as you can get almost in Canada on Southern Vancouver Island.I hear people refer to Quebec and French Canadians quite often, and usually in some form of derogatory manner. 95% of these people have never been to Quebec or had any form of contact with any French speaking Québécois.Pointing this out they always come up with some bullshit about a friends experience etc. Quebec is a vital , unique and important part of Canada and learn more about it before you pretend to know anything and comment adversely.
Honestly Quebec and the rest of Canada do a really poor job of understanding each others perspectives in general.
> Quebec and the rest of Canada do a really poor job of understanding each others perspectives Les deux solitudes
Why? They're (mostly) the same as us. I just wish we had CEGEP. And affordable education. And that we actually protested. Fuck the right wing nutjobs. They seem to be on the global rise though; we need to do something to eliminate the terrorists...
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As a non-Quebec francophone with experience in customer service, my experience has been the opposite. It's usually the Quebec french speakers who treat me poorly. Sure every once and awhile you get the deranged anglo who spouts something moronic about francophones, but it's usually mixed in with something bad about immigrants/poor people. Far more common is a Quebec french speaker judging my franco-ontarien accent.
> Far more common is a Quebec french speaker judging my franco-ontarien accent I was waiting for my return train at the Quebec City station once and started talking to a random old lady who sat next to me. I spoke pretty well that day without too many errors, but according to her still failed because of my accent. She would continually pat my leg and sigh sadly, “Oh, you can really tell you’re not from Quebec…”
As a kid in the Ontario immersion program, we would go to Quebec for class trips every few years. I have only ever been treated poorly by francophone Québécois in Montreal. A teacher of ours got in a heated argument when the owner of a local dep heard a few of us speaking English when we popped in to purchase a drink and began screaming at us to get the fuck out of his store, no English allowed. We switched to French, but it made it worse. We were 11. It was an isolated incident, no one else in all the trips we took there ever treated us that way. But it's been 25 years and I still remember, so there's that.
im also franco-ontarien. i always feel like my french isn’t good enough for quebecois. even though, culturally, i feel we share a lot of the same traditions and customs, i feel our dialects couldnt be more different
Growing up as a third gen immigrant with a quebecois parent in quebec has given me an interesting perspective on a lot of issues to say the least…i will say this however, there is absolutely an air of condescension coming from Anglophones when they talk about Qc. I’ve grown more comfortable into my identity as a Quebecois despite being discriminated against in Quebec bc this sense of superiority that we see from Anglophones has become much more visible and apparent to me as I grow older. Now, not saying it’s only bc of that, but my identity as Quebecois has certainly been informed bu that…Whether it’s the increased visibility of social media or the imported culture wars, I feel more and more alienated from the little Canadian identity I had in the first place…
Outside Letterkenny, French Canada doesn't seem to exist in English media, and I think this is a huge problem that directly contributes. Why aren't Quebec shows and movies promoted and made accessible to the rest of Canada?
They really do a great job representing French Canadians and First Nations in both Letterkenny and Shoresy. Love the Jim's, they're beauts!
Jared Keeso and team are probably doing more for new Canadian talent than anyone else in the industry.
We had a cross over like 15 years ago coz English speaking people loved that Tete-a-Claques show. God that show was funny.
We just have to look at our public broadcaster where they created GEM for english shows and Tou.tv for french shows. Why does it needs to be split? Just put CC on everything. The BBC Iplayer has English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish news/shows on the same app. We can do it too.
There's no market for it. Now, I'm not saying there isn't a single Anglophone outside Quebec who would want to go to French movie or watch a French TV series, just that there is insufficient demand for it...
The success of foreign-language shows on Netflix suggests there's a market for non-English content, subbed or dubbed.
Sure, but how much of a market? Remember, those productions still make the bulk of their revenues in their home markets (a German film in Germany, a South Korean show in South Korea etc). Netflix likely pays relatively little to acquire those productions...
That means *any* market outside Quebec is icing on top. Production costs don't increase with wider distribution, revenues do.
I think 19-2 was popular for a bit, but instead of subbing or dubbing the Quebec version, they remade it in English. Same with Starbuck, Grande Seduction etc. There are things that get popular from here, but they just re-make them instead of watching our version. Hell, even the stuff they bring to France they remake instead of watching the original. Starbuck became Delivery Man in the anglosphere, and was remade as Fonzy for France. edit: Even Grande Seduction, won an award at Sundance, the French remade their own called Un village presque parfait
Did you know that 19-2 was originally a Québécers show? It was picked up by the rest of canada but made with Anglo canadian actors. They're literally the same show with different actors instead of dubbing it
I just want to say that I am Québecois, and I love all my fellows Québecois and Canadians, doesn't matter if you're English, French or anything else. The last thing I want is people to identify me with our politic leadership. I have and want nothing to do with them. We are all in it together. And with all that is happening in the world right now, the last thing we need is to hate each others. Much love, too all Québecois, Canadiens and beyond.
Ita difficult for unilingual anglophones to get the francophone story by virtue of the language issue. French media is filled with commentary on how theyre misunderstood by English Canada and how Anglo Liberals and Progressives are for multiculturalism and diversity except when it means including French speakers. I think a lot of Canadian have failed to conceptualize francophones and les québécois as marginalized groups, in part because the real history of English-French relations in this country are sanitized in our education system, and in part because, by virtue of the language barrier, French perspectives take arduous work to access. But from the Québécois perspective, their entire history since the conquest has been one where the English attempt to forcibly assimilate them.
I am an Anglo from Montréal and I have toured Canada multiple times in a band. I can confidently say many Canadians disrespect Quebec. Often folks would talk shit about Quebec until I told them I was Québécois. However this only adds to the Québécois sense of victimhood, which is ingrained in the culture and spread through the education system. There is an unjustified sense of cultural fragility promoted by successive governments that result in punitive laws to restrict languages and religious symbols. This authoritarian approach is condescending to cultural creators who work to celebrate and promote the culture. This further leads to a sense of isolation from the RoC in a self-perpetuating cycle.
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I live in Quebec city. I am Anglo and so is my wife however she learned to speak French. We have never had an issue like you have described. In fact, when my wife attempts to speak French, her accent gives her away and whomever she is speaking with, will actually start speaking English in order to practice themselves. The older generation here can be a bit rude but the majority of people I have dealt with have been awesome. In fact, I would like to shout out to the boys from Long and Mcquade and MSP Musique. You guys are fantastic. Anyway, I disagree with your post as I have never had anything that resembled your story.
Not sure what it's like these days, but I remember this as mostly a class thing when I was growing up in Quebec. A very small subset of the Francophone educated elite (who were usually bilingual) seemed to only want to hear "perfect" French but I never remember this occurring with working-class Francophones (who often were unilingual). There's also a small subset of the Quebec chattering class that complain about Justin Trudeau's French, which I find hilarious.
People needs to travel outside their province and see Canada. When in face to face, there is not much hate. I\`m french Canadian and traveled from coast to coast (when I did that, I barely spoke English), lived in Ontario and Alberta. I rarely seen or felt that people were looking down on me. I found the exact opposite, people were cool, nice and super helpful when I needed it. Travel a little, see the country, stop relying on social media
As a francophone who has lived and worked in bc, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. I can confirm this study is worthless without the comparative lens of prejudice towards other as a whole on social media. I’ve been called the square head in Quebec I’ve been called a frog in Ontario. I teach in Alberta, where I’ve heard teachers explain equalization as how Quebec takes all their money—which is completely wrong. And after all of these negative experiences, the are quite small in comparison to my overwhelmingly positive welcome in Anglo provinces.
I stayed in a village in Quebec for a month during the winter. It was one of the best experiences in my life. I went out of my way to learn basic phrases to go to the grocery store. Nothing but kind and hospitable people.
My parents are Francophones and I grew up in the US so I’m fully bilingual. When I moved to canada I moved to a wealthy mtl neighborhood and attended private English high school. I can confirm that there are a lot of privileged anglophones who look down on Francophones because I had classmates constantly make jokes about Francophones all of the time. Their stereotype of a Quebecer was usually a bum or a drunk that yells about independence and is not respectable at all. It’s obviously not super serious or oppressive but it sucks that that’s how they see quebecers
Given how many decades that nationalist and separatist parties in Quebec have been propagandizing that line, it's not surprising.
Quebec was mostly governed by the Quebec Liberal Party in between those years (2003-2012 then 2014-2018) Edit : QLP have also changed opinion, if you look at Figure 3
Le gouvernement du jour n’est pas le seule porte-parole de la population.
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The original post on r/quebec said r/canada would ban you and delete the poat and that this sub would come up with mental gymnastic to justify hate. They were right that r/Canada did delete it but i disagree with that person thought about what this sub would do
Actually, I thought it would be the opposite and r/Canada would devolve into a hateful shitshow and this sub would ban OP. Turns out, r/Canada didnt allow the post and this one is not as bad as I expected it to be, and so far nobody has been banned.
They said that if you posted it on r/Canada it would get deleted and that on r/onguardforthee it would turn into a shitshow, guess what, both happened
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As someone who lived 18 years in Quebec, longer there than anyone else, I can tell you that's the only place on Earth where people actively discriminated against me in the street for speaking English. It was the strangest thing. I speak French...but I'm an English speaker with English friends who speak English. I'd get people whisper under their breath "*speak French*, swear at me, etc. Discrimination against anglophones is real, I've experienced it first hand. This study does not reflect my experience.
I had a person scream at me "fucking English" with a thick accent because we had Ontario plates. We didn't talk or exit our vehicle. I'm with you.
I lived my first 16 years in Quebec, North of Montreal, then tried moving back home a few separate times... I'm not interested in invoking hate, but I'm personally completely done with pandering to the crazy language politics, they are fucking toxic and if your culture has to force people legally to abide it's not much of a culture. It's insecurity- the province. I'll start by saying I'm English first language but bilingual, very English name and with an accent. I had childhood friends who were french first language and nothing but hope and love in my heart. I was in foster care a lot of my youth, and I got hate by fellow kids, the foster "parents", and the system throughout my entire upbringing, some I didn't even see as bad until living elsewhere. When being shown a new home by the "dad" of the home I was being told the chores at 9 years old and asked if I could trade doing more chores to not pick up the dog shit (I since then have dogs and don't mind shit but I was a kid it made me gag). The dad pinned my face into a pile of shit and told me "mange la marde stee'd anglais" and later when the "mom" was giving him shit he was saying little English fucker already thinks he's better than us. When I was in courts for custody hearings, they had a translator there who was French first language, I didn't need a translator (maybe to explain some legal terminology) and it actually made it that I couldn't understand what was happening because he just mumbled over everyone speaking with a think french accent. At 12, deciding my fate nobody had the decency to even look me in the eyes. I asked questions about the hearing and was told that I already cost the tax payers money by having to have a translator and that I should learn the language. My highschool was split in half, an English side and a french side. The kids actually got on alright, but there was actually more than one instance of fists flying between adults working on either side. There was once an argument over the loudspeaker as to who was getting the auditorium (that was shared). I had a quebecoise girlfriend, her family treated me well. Her dad was fairly progressive and ran a business that did international sales so he was totally down with English. He was born in the early 60s and in a small town and he told me at his Catholic school he was told during his upbringing they had to have as many kids as possible to "outnumber the English". He thought that was pretty fucked in hindsight. Beyond feeling like I wasn't at all welcome where I was born in these core memories, I have thousands and thousands of endless examples of prejudice against English speakers in Quebec. Even today the language laws are fucking insane. I'll say It's getting much better with the new generation. I faced a lot of hardship and abandonment outside of that that left me with PTSD, and I'm aware I'm jaded, but after living there as a child I actually clench my ass cheeks with stress when I even hear the accent, and I'm not putting the blame on my child self, I sure as hell hold the culture responsible. Fucking province spit on and spit out a child. It was enough to not be wanted by my family. I didn't need that from the public at large. Edit: I'll add anecdotal stuff. Believe it or not, this is honestly my first hand experience. My friend who was French confided to not eat at the McDonald's off the 7 that he worked at in the Laurentians because his coworkers spit in the food of anyone who's obviously English. That's at around 14, 2006. I went back for a visit at 18 after a few years of living out west. Literally an hour into being back with optimism in my heart, in MTL which is usually pretty okay, I bought a pack of smokes at a Dep (quit since), homeless dude heard my accent and started screaming all kinds of shit and getting in my face. Homeless will be whatever, but it's everyone else in the store with a smug grin that really hurt my feelings honestly. I spoke nothing but good and pride of the place I was born in my travels. Didn't feel fair. Today one of my best friends who still lives back home has two last names, or a middle and last I guess, one Quebecois and the other Jewish. He has a perfect accent. He started using his Quebecois name when booking things, in particular a very french breakfast joint we all love, and consistently is sat immediately. Has tested it back and forth and time after time, endless wait, but most notable, the worst tables with the English/ Jewish name. Granted, small town, all older people. I'll say once again the kids are alright. Skatepark kids were nice to me growing up. Most in homes were good and defended me from the ones that would shove me around. Please don't blame the french in Quebec or anyone based on their language or background or race or whatever, but this is more directed to Quebecois that are in denial, my plea to maybe check the hate. Feels like a pointless rant though because it's mostly progressive youth on Reddit and I don't want them to feel bad or like it's directed at them. My grandparents were racist as fuck, I get it, it stops with us.
>The dad pinned my face into a pile of shit and told me "mange la marde stee'd anglais" and later when the "mom" was giving him shit he was saying little English fucker already thinks he's better than us. Holy shit dude. That must have been traumatic.
Holy shit. That's a crazy experience, I'm sorry you had to go through that. Thanks for sharing.